Dancing Lizards

Start, stop, look, start, stop

Dancing over arid flats

to the creosote

I am back from teaching the field course in the SW-USA. It was a tremendous trip. One that was full of adventure and excitement, lots of learning, and experiences that will last forever in our memories. Travelling, camping, and living with 28 other people for two weeks has an intensity that is difficult to describe, but overall so positive!

We saw wildlife, sunrises and sunsets, we gazed at stars, walked among saguaro, and saw first-hand how humans have transferred arid landscapes (the Hoover Dam and Salton Sea are two examples of the this).

I found the rattlesnakes and lizards to be particularly outstanding, in part because you just don’t see such animals in the Montreal area. The Zebra-tailed lizards depicted above* were charming lizards – they were never daunted by the heat, and perhaps the most frequent lizards to cross our paths – dashing from one creosote bush to another. They were always alert, quick, and had the most spectacular colouration (which I was really unable to capture in the watercolour).

* I took a very small Moleskine watercolour album (3.5 x 5.5″) with me to the desert, a little travel kit with paints, a few technical pens, and one brush pen. I filled the entire album, and look forward to sharing more of the art in the weeks ahead. Simple tools worked well, and I was so busy on the trip that I often had only a few minutes here and there to splash down some paint or outline an animal, plant, or landscape with a pen. Quite a lot of the resulting pieces are spread over two pages, like the lizard above, and quite a few are better for perhaps the memories they bring rather than the quality of the art! I do very much find, however, that an art journal is better than a photograph when remembering a trip or place.

© Christopher M Buddle 2023